You probably didn’t think you’d ever hear the venerable Vienna Philharmonic play music from the Harry Potter films. However, they make a fine job of “Hedwig’s Theme” as part of a let-your-hair-down summer program under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach and themed around figures from the world of fairy-tale and fantasy. Renée Fleming, in voluptuous voice, is luxury casting for a sequence of songs and arias—with one of her party pieces, Rusalka’s “Song to the Moon”, making a welcome appearance.

Mario Venzago is the principal conductor and artistic director of the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Artist in Association at Finland's Tapiola Sinfonietta and a regular guest conductor of the Kammerorchester Basel. Before taking up conducting, Venzago was a concert pianist at Radiotelevisione Svizerra in Switzerland, and performed throughout Europe as a soloist and accompanist. Several of his CDs have won international prizes.

Although a great specialist of 17th and 18th century repertories, the tenor Thibaut Lenaerts has chosen for his first solo disc to plunge into the world of Gabriel Fauré’s songs, accompanied by Philippe Riga and the soft, warm tones of a magnificent 1873 Erard piano. An alchemy of colours that promises a superb recital, imbued with a sense of irresistible nostalgia for both performer and listener.

ORA’s third album release, a collection of works by Thomas Tallis featuring six ORA commissioned reflections by six contemporary composers, will be released in early 2017.

A monument of chamber music: The string quartet was of central importance to Bartók throughout his career. His six quartets were written (between 1907 and 1939) at crucial turning points in the composer's creative development. From the elegiac tone of Quartet no.1 (reflecting an unhappy love affair) to the sadness and wry parody of no.6, composed on the eve of World War II, by way of the mirror forms and atmospheric 'night music' of nos.4 and 5, they represent perhaps the biggest interpretative challenge in the genre alongside the Beethoven quartets.

Handel’s Ottone, re di Germania is presented here in a new recording by Max Emanuel Cencic and a superb cast, under the baton of George Petrou with Il Pomo d’Oro.

When John Dowland composes the seven pavans that form the famous Lachrimae, he gives the instrumental repertoire one of its first masterpieces. The Sit Fast consort, lead by Atsushi Sakaï, features a precious version of those timeless pages. Who says the viole should be earmarked for early music? In fact, the pure sonority of this intrument, the ideal vehicle for inner grief, inspired George Benjamin too. Upon Silence, written in 1990 for five violes and a mezzo-soprano on a poem by Yeats, extends and updates the poetics tears of John Dowland. Four centuries separate the two composers but their polyphonic writings and their longing for genuine feelings gather them in that disc, smartly recorded by the elegant Sit Fast consort.

When Nonesuch Records celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2014, with festivals at London's Barbican Centre and New York's Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Kronos Quartet joined forces with four labelmates-Sam Amidon, Olivia Chaney, Rhiannon Giddens, and Natalie Merchant-to perform a concert entitled Folk Songs. The group later recorded the songs, most of which are traditional with contemporary arrangements, with Doug Petty as the album's producer.